6. Fresard lot, at 400 N. Main St. and University Ave., north of 11 Mile

7. Center Street lot, at Center and Second streets, west of Main St.

8. 11 Mile lot, at 11 Mile and Center St., west of Main St.

9. Third & Williams lot, at Third St. and Williams, east of Main St.

10. E. Lincoln & Troy lots, three lots at 211 and 220 E. Lincoln, east of Main St.

11. Vacant grass lot at Main St. and I-696 service drive

12. Royal Oak Middle School lot, 709 N. Washington, north of 11 Mile

13. Shuttle parking, Royal Oak High School, 1500 Lexington, off Crooks, north of 13 Mile

Free bicycle parking lots, on Washington Ave. south of Lincoln and near Second St.

(Source: City of Royal Oak)

There’s no way around it. If you’re going to the Arts, Beats & Eats festival in Royal Oak this weekend you’ll probably have to shell out $15 to park.

Organizers promise there is plenty of available parking at lots and decks near the event, but motorists are warned to avoid trying to park on any residential streets.

Royal Oak is renowned for its intense parking enforcement and things only get more serious during the ABE festival.

The event is centered along a half-mile stretch of Washington between Lincoln and 11 Mile Road. There is no parking on the hundreds of residential streets surrounding the festival area without a permit. The city weeks ago issued permits to homeowners.

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“Royal Oak has aggressive parking enforcement year round,” said Royal Oak Police Chief Corrigan O’Donohue. “If you don’t have a permit, you can’t park in the permit zone.”

O’Donohue expects his officers will issue about 1,500 parking tickets at $50 a pop during the festival. That’s only a fraction of the thousands of tickets issued in 2009 when ABE first came to Royal Oak and scofflaws ignored signs, clogging neighborhoods with litter and parked cars.

Greg Rassel, head of the city Department of Public Services, said his employees this week set out about 300 barricades at the entry streets to neighborhoods surrounding the festival area.

The barricades have signs indicating permit-parking areas and warn that anyone without a permit will be ticketed.

“The residential permit parking area is from a quarter mile to a half mile in each direction,” from the festival area, Rassel said. “There will be no on-street meter parking during the festival. Those spaces have been reserved for vendors.”

The rest of the city’s roughly 2,000 parking meters will not be in use as public parking lots are turned over to flat-fee uses.

Parking at downtown lots and the district’s three parking structures costs $15. There are two value lots where parking is $10, located at Main and the I-696 service drive, and a shuttle lot at Royal Oak High School, 1500 Lexington, north of 13 Mile off of Crooks.

Depending on the weather, the festival may attract up to 400,000 people to Royal Oak’s downtown during the four days of the event, O’Donohue said.

“We’ve found that there is enough turnover in the parking lots and garages that people can park pretty close to the event,” he said.

While parking fees are much higher than normal, the fees are used to pay city costs for public safety and public works expenses.

Any profit the city makes from parking is used to fund improvements at city parks.

Royal Oak early this month opened a $110,000 play structure at Starr Jaycee Park paid for with funds from Arts, Beats & Eats parking. It is the largest play structure in the city.